The Human Fabric of the Web

Sketching out the the social structure of a large company such as Facebook is a task which is important not only in order to understand the impact of such a global internet phenomenon as the social network on the society, local and global economy, and civil freedoms, but also to better understand how the development of high-end technology and communication infrastructures intertwine with the accumulation of capital and political power. Even though the world is at the point of postglobal development (a point where global is already reached and the new local is what the market needs), the deep embeddedness of the company in the economic, political and social elite/establishment of one society/country is what makes the company strong enough to act globally – and not, as is often thought, through the cooperation of the elites around the world... As our investigation shows, the real fabric of the web consists of the personalsocial networks of specific people in the higher strata of the company. If anything other than its profit, this is what keeps the whole structure together and safe from any change in the political establishment.